In the Arms of the Dead
by Rhys
Summary: Myrtle, she said her name was, and she was concerned for him—a dead girl, concerned for him! But Draco felt dead himself half the time, these days, and knew that he was only an impatient flick of the Dark Lord's wand away from joining Myrtle in the grave.


It was Draco Malfoy's sixth year at school and nothing was going the way it was supposed to. His favorite teacher could no longer be trusted, the new one despised him when he deigned to notice him at all (he might as well have been Weasley—Weasley!—for all the attention that Slughorn paid him), Potter was doing better than he was at Potions—_Potter!_—and Draco couldn't even bring himself to care. He was too worried about everything else: his mother, a hostage in their home; his father, locked up in prison and maybe safer there than he would be out; his aunt, who might well snap at any moment and who frightened him even more than the Dark Lord did—the Dark Lord, his new master, the one who had put that thing on his arm.

The pride Draco had felt when he was first given his task, first given his Mark, had very quickly faded to be replaced with a cold, ever-increasing fear. As the year went on it got worse and worse, like an icy, scaly hand slowly squeezing the life out of him. It had gotten so that he could barely breathe. He certainly couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he pictured the Dark Lord's face, or his aunt's; he pictured his mother writhing in torture, his father dead, Aunt Bella laughing, Snape standing in his father's rightful place; or the icy, far-too-perceptive eyes of Albus Dumbledore staring at him in silent accusation.

Draco woke trembling in fear, or with the remembered agonies of the Cruciatus Curse; the Dark Lord liked to make his point vividly, liked his servants to know exactly what waited for them if they should fail him. And Aunt Bella, Draco had learned, just liked pain. The one good thing was that her excruciating technique had inspired Draco to learn her lessons well, and quickly; there was no way Snape could peer into his mind now, expert Legilimens though the man apparently was. His aunt's Occlumency lessons had been…_inspired,_ and Draco had taken them quickly to heart.

He had also become relatively versed at wandless, wordless magic of late, which was good, because he cast a silencing charm on himself every night before he tried to go to sleep. It was the only way that he could be certain his nightmares would not wake the others, embarrassing him and inspiring questions that he wasn't about to answer.

Draco wished now that he'd never shown them the Mark, never told them he was up to anything. They kept asking what it was he had been tasked to do, specifically, even Crabbe and Goyle, who were for the first time chaffing under his orders. They still obeyed, of course; just not without question, and Draco did not have the time nor energy, these days, to bring them to heel.

Theodore was the only one who didn't ask, didn't pry; his father, too, was in Azkaban, and unlike Crabbe and Goyle, Theodore understood just what that could mean. But it had been Draco's father, not Theo's, who had been the Dark Lord's favorite; Draco's father who had led the Death Eaters into the Ministry; Draco's father who, now, was blamed by the Dark Lord for their failure.

Draco felt another burning, jealous spike twist at his heart; it wasn't his father's fault, and it wasn't fair! Potter ruined everything—_everything!_—and the Dark Lord just didn't understand. Didn't he know that his father had always been loyal, always been perfect? None of this was fair!

But there was nothing Draco could do about that, about any of it, except to carry out the Dark Lord's wishes and hope that, when he had, everything would go back to the way it had been. His father would be freed, their family restored to the Dark Lord's favor, his parents safe—and, once more, able to protect _him_.

If father had been at home, Aunt Bella would never have dared raise her wand against her nephew. Oh, mother shielded him as best she could from her crazed sister, but there was only so much she could do, and Draco didn't want to worry her, didn't want to endanger her. He hadn't told mother how his aunt reinforced her lessons; he had been too afraid of what would happen to the both of them if she tried to interfere for his sake. But if father had been there… Even the Dark Lord, Draco told himself—despite some part of him, somewhere, knowing that it wasn't true, although he couldn't bring himself to admit it—even the Dark Lord wouldn't dare hurt him if father was there.

But father wasn't. Father was in Azkaban, all because of that stupid Potter.

But even tormenting Potter, these days, had lost its appeal. It should be easy, now, Draco knew; it was even expected of him, really, by everyone. He knew people were staring at him, wondering why he didn't say anything; wondering why he allowed Potter to best him in Potions; wondering why he wasn't out on the Quidditch pitch; wondering why he let Slulghorn insult him, slight him, like that; wondering why he had suddenly stopped making Potter's life miserable.

Even Potter himself clearly wondered what had happened: where had the venom with which Draco had started out the year gone? He'd stomped his face in, broke his nose, dropped him under his stupid cloak and almost stopped, or at least delayed, his return to Hogwarts—but it was always _almost_, with Potter. Nothing Draco did could ever hurt the accursed boy for very long; everyone always sided with him, anyway, and with all the teachers (save for Snape, and Draco could no longer rely on Snape) on his side, there was only so much that Draco could do, could ever do, to Potter. He missed Umbridge; tedious and obnoxious although the woman had been, she had certainly made things more interesting, more fair; her tenure had gone a long way, while it lasted, towards making up for all the years that had come before, when perfect Potter had gotten away with everything but outright murder.

Draco should have been making him miserable for that like he always did; should have been working to balance those scales the way he had ever since Potter had dared to snub him for a Weasley—a _Weasley!_—when all Draco had done was magnanimously offer his own justly coveted friendship. Draco sill had a long way to go towards reversing all the slights he had suffered at Potter's hands over the years.

And he knew just how to start: his mother's reviled cousin, Sirius Black, had finally been exonerated by the Ministry but only posthumously. Potter had been fond of the blood-traitor, by all accounts; the filthy mongrel had been his godfather, after all. It would be so easy to taunt Potter, fluster him, enrage him; so easy to break him down into tears…but mentioning Sirius Black would mean mentioning where he had died, and how, and Draco didn't want to think about the Ministry, or the battle that had taken his father away from him.

Besides, Potter was the least of his worries right now. Granted, Draco had admittedly been amused when Weasley had been the one poisoned with that mead (and damn Potter for actually paying attention in class for once, knowing to grab a bezoar!), but that bit of entertainment had come at a heavy price: Dumbledore was still alive, and the Dark Lord was getting impatient.

Draco shuddered, and felt the brand on his arm burn, but he knew it was all in his head. He rubbed the spot, absently, then quickly stopped himself, looking around the common room to see if anyone had noticed.

Only Pansy, who was making those stupid cow-eyes at him again. She was quickly becoming more annoyance than she was worth: always fussing at him, fussing at _it_. But Draco couldn't bring himself to throw her over completely. He was so frightened these days, so alone, that, tedious though Parkinson was becoming, sometimes he had to admit that it was nice to just let her cuddle and fuss. It was nice to let someone—anyone—touch him. So long as she could be convinced to shut-up he could just wrap himself in her arms and try to feel warm again.

He was always cold, these days. The ghost girl felt warmer, sometimes, than he did. Whenever she forgot that she wasn't corporeal and tried to touch him (and Draco wondered if she occasionally did it on purpose) her arms were like an icy spike driving through him, but he barely ever shivered. It was like he had himself frozen the day that Mark appeared on his arm; turned to ice, hollow and empty and terrified, and nothing would ever be able to warm him again.

Pansy tried, because she felt him growing distant, moving father away from her than ever before, and Draco let her, because any bit of comfort, any scrap of warmth, was precious to him, now. But soon enough he grew cold even in her clinging arms and reality whispered to him in a frozen, impatient snake-hiss, and he was up again, restless and trembling, struggling with that accursed cabinet. He knew he could fix it—he _knew _he could—but he was missing something, something crucial, and it was taking too long, too long and the Dark Lord was grown impatient and Draco feared that, any day now, he would get the letter telling him that his mother way paying for his dawdling with her screams.

The worst part of that was that Draco _had _dawdled, delayed, at first; after the initial burst of pride and eagerness and energy had worn off, slaked because the cabinet was in worse shape than he'd expected, and the reality of what he was trying to do set in. Kill Albus Dumbledore—him? Kill the headmaster? The only wizard that the Dark Lord himself had ever feared? And how was he supposed to accomplish that, exactly, when even his dread master could not bring himself to do so?

Oh, he knew the spell; knew all the spells, really, that his aunt and his master could teach him, could torture into him. But the chance to actually _do_ so, to actually _use_ the spells—that was another matter to arrange! He couldn't just walk up to the headmaster in the great hall and hex him; even if he got the spell off properly he would never walk away from it. Potter would see to that, Potter or one of the professors; he could hardly count on Snape, he knew, no matter what the man had sworn to his mother. Snape had gleefully usurped his father's place, Draco was sure of it, the very second that Lucius Malfoy had been dragged into Azkaban, and he would surely not hesitate to let Draco go down in flames and curses so that he could take all the credit.

No, he couldn't count on Snape, couldn't count on anyone. He couldn't even confide in anyone. He couldn't talk to his mother; he daren't risk saying any of this in an owl and besides, she was worried enough already. He couldn't talk to his father; Azkaban was far beyond his reach. He hadn't even gotten to say goodbye after the trial: just stood there, clinging to mother's hand, fighting back tears and swallowing the urge to shout right across the courtroom, in front of everyone, while the Aurors led his father away.

But Draco hadn't shouted, hadn't said anything; that would have been undignified and it was bad enough that the filthy Aurors were treating his father like some common criminal, Draco could never shame the family by behaving like an uncultured Mudblood, no matter how much he wanted to cry out for his father and beg them all to let him go, let him come home. Let him hug him, at least, one more time, before they locked him away.

And he couldn't talk to Crabbe or Goyle; couldn't trust them this time, with this secret. Draco knew his friends' limitations, and what if one of them stupidly let something slip, and ruined it all? No, they could be told nothing beyond simple instructions, not this time. Draco was used to being on his own, being in charge, but it had never been this hard before, this frightening. He wanted to tell his friends what was going on but even if he could have risked it, he knew they'd never understand.

Nott would, probably; he was clever and perceptive enough to know how tenuous all their positions now were in a way that Crabbe and Goyle couldn't grasp. But Theodore had always been separate, stand-offish, and even now, with so much in common, so much pulling them together, Draco couldn't trust the other boy. Everything they shared, in fact, only made that a more dangerous idea; what if Nott betrayed him to curry his own favor? That didn't seem likely; Theodore had withdrawn from everyone when his father was taken away, trying not to be noticed, remembered. He didn't want anyone—whether it was the Dark Lord or his enemies—to remember that his father, too, was a Death Eater. He didn't want to have to pick sides, get involved. But that didn't mean he wouldn't, if he was presented with a tempting enough opportunity; he was still a Slytherin and Draco did not mean to tempt him.

And of course Parkinson and Zabini would never understand. They were both safe, separate from all of this. Oh, they'd been impressed enough, to be sure, when Draco had first shown off the Mark he'd been so honored to have received (even if Blaise had tried to downplay his awe; Draco had seen through that façade). But they weren't _part _of it. They were watching from the sidelines, from where it was safe to laugh and mock and pretend that there was more to life than Marks and missions. They had never even seen the Dark Lord, never felt his wrath; never seen the Aurors come trampling through their homes, sneering and searching, while their father languished helpless in a cell.

Draco fought back tears. He couldn't cry, not here, not in front of everyone. Parkinson would flutter, and Zabini would mock, and Crabbe and Goyle would slip further away than ever, their awe and respect of him gradually crumbling as he crumbled under the pressure of the Dark Lord's invisible hand on his neck.

Draco wept in his bed sometimes, with the curtains drawn and a silencing charm cast, while the others slept and he pretended to, but he always worried about being found, being seen. He didn't dare show anyone how weak he was, how frightened, how much he was falling apart; the Dark Lord would know, somehow, and if he thought that Draco was failing…

The only place that was safe was that bathroom, the one with the dead girl. He had stumbled into it one day, choking on sobs and blinded by the tears he could restrain no longer, not knowing where he was going or even caring; just that he had to get out of the hallway, quickly, before someone saw him.

The cabinet had come so close to working—_so close!_—and then, at the last minute…he'd been wrong. It was worse than ever before, the wood scorched where his spell his gone wrong, and Draco had been convinced, for a moment, that everything was lost, that he would never be able to do this, that it was all over. He'd broken down halfway to History of Magic and fled, dodging out of sight, through the nearest door.

He'd nearly jumped out of his skin when the girl spoke. She'd caught him curled up on the cold floor, his knees drawn in to his chest, wracked with all the sobs that he'd been restraining for too many months. His wand had been out and a curse halfway off his lips when he'd blinked enough tears away to realize that he could see through her.

Myrtle, she said her name was, and she was concerned for him—a dead girl, concerned for him! But Draco felt dead himself half the time, these days, and knew that he was only an impatient flick of the Dark Lord's wand away from joining Myrtle in the grave.

"Boy, why are you crying?" she'd asked him.

And Draco, hardly knowing why, had told her. He was just so sick of hiding it all, of keeping his secrets—oh, he still kept the secrets, the dangerous ones. He did not mention anything about Death Eaters or Dark Lords or Dark Marks, or about vanishing cabinets and assassination plots, and headmasters who looked like they knew too much. But he told her the other secrets, the even more dangerous ones, the ones that were all his own.

He told her that he had to do something that he didn't think he could, or he would die, but he did not tell her what it was. He told her about his father, unfairly held in prison, although he did not tell her why. He told her about his mother, a hostage under threat of death, although he did not tell her from whom. He told her about his aunt, and how much it hurt when she held her wand on him, and how much worse it was when she only laughed, although he did not say her name, not her full name: just "Aunt Bella," and left it at that. He told her about his friends, and how alone he felt even when they were with him, and how much he wished he could trust them.

He told her about the others, too: all the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and even Hufflepuffs, and how they laughed at him whenever he slipped, even for an instant, and revealed a single weakness.

He told her about the madman who had pretended to be Alastor Moody and had tormented him because he hated Draco's father, was jealous of him; told her what Crouch had done to him, humiliating him, and how people still, from time to time, teased him about it. He told her about Snape, whom he had once admired, and now he could not trust, who would not leave him be. He told her about Slughorn, who pretended that he wouldn't have killed to lick Draco's father's boots, just a year ago, if given half the chance; how now that his father was in disgrace he couldn't even bear to remember Draco's name, let alone everything he'd ever owed to his grandfather. And he told her about his grandfather: that frightening, looming menace of a man who still, from time to time, turned up to sneer at him in his dreams for not being good enough, even though Abraxas Malfoy was long dead.

He told her about Potter, and Weasley, and that horrible know-it-all Granger, who somehow managed to beat him on every exam, every test, just because the teachers went easy on her due to the handicap of her lineage. How unfair it all was, how you had to try twice as hard, if you were in Slytherin, to never foul up, when the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Weasleys got away with everything. How he could never beat Potter, no matter how fast he flew, how hard he trained; how the other boy would let him come within a hairsbreadth of catching the snitch and then snatch it away, leering at Draco's failure, lording it over him. He told her how he missed flying but that he felt sick, now, every time he got on his broom, remembering when his father had taught him how to do it, before everything had gone so wrong.

He told her about everyone who had ever mocked or maligned him, every day that had ended in disgrace or defeat, every time he had had to hide his tears because Malfoys don't cry.

But he did cry, sobbing like a child, sitting next to the dead girl with the sad eyes and the empty arms. And even while he drew comfort from her chilly presence some part of Draco hated himself for needing that, for craving it; for being weak enough to want it. Who was she to comfort him, this dead girl in the bathroom that no one used because of all her wailing?

But she was all he had.

So he found himself returning, time and time again, seeking comfort from the dead because the living could not help him, now.


End file.
